"Thanks to the repugnant behavior of city officials and the boorish
behavior of several hundred pro-abortion activists, San Francisco went
a long way on Jan. 22 to solidify its reputation as one of the most intolerant
cities in the nation." - Catholic
San Francisco editorial, Jan. 28, 2005

San Franciscos elected officials incited intolerant and potentially
dangerous behavior with their intemperate condemnation of the citys
first Walk for Life West Coast, the citys archdiocesan newspaper
says in an unusually
strong January 28 editorial.

On January 11, the board of supervisors approved a resolution, signed
by Mayor Gavin Newsom, declaring the anniversary of Roe v. Wade "Stand
Up for Choice Day" and held a press conference specifically condemning
the Walk for Life West Coast. The news conference was held in conjunction
with Planned Parenthood Golden Gate and NARAL Pro-Choice California.

Newsom and several supervisors railed in favor of abortion rights at a
rally held up the street from the Walk rally on January 22, before abortion
rights activists marched down downtowns Market Street, yelling and
using bullhorns in an attempt to disrupt the peaceful Walk rally.

"Thanks to the repugnant rhetoric of city officials and the boorish
behavior of several hundred pro-abortion activists, San Francisco went
a long way on Jan. 22 to solidify its reputation as one of the most intolerant
cities in the nation," wrote Maurice Healy, the editor of Catholic
San Francisco, the weekly diocesan paper of San Francisco.

The Walk drew more than 1,000 hecklers who gestured obscenely, threw condoms,
jeered, chanted and berated the more than 7,000 walkers, many of them
families with small children. More than a hundred police officers lined
the route, separating the Walk for Life participants from the counter
demonstrators. Police arrested two abortion rights demonstrators.

"In declaring "Stand Up for Choice Day"  in reaction
to plans for Walk for Life West Coast  San Francisco Supervisors
sent a bellicose message to pro-choice activists and a call for aggressive
action," wrote Healy, director of communications for the Archdiocese.
"Local Supervisors, who like to think of themselves as liberal and
progressive, called for a reactionary and intolerant response. In the
process, San Franciscos elected officials raised their voices against
freedom of speech and right of assembly."

"Despite the Supervisors innate message of "Dont
come, dont speak, dont march," a peaceful Walk for Life
 West Coast rally at Justin Herman Plaza featured noted women and
movements calling for better treatment for women. At noon, the pro-life
throng of 7,000 people  young, old, and many families with children
 began a procession along the Embarcadero to Marina Green. As the
praying, singing and smiling pro-life people began their route, they were
met with loud insults and vile invective thrown at them by pro-abortion
zealots. Many insults were specifically anti-Catholic," Healy noted
in the Catholic San Francisco editorial.

"What was the object of their hatred? The Walk for Life participants
who quietly and purposefully walked behind a banner that simply said,
"Abortion hurts Women." The pro-choice activists were enraged
to see thousands of people proceeding under a sea of posters with the
simple message, Women deserve better than abortion."

San Franciscos archdiocese supported the Walk, which was organized
by a group of San Francisco area residents, mostly women, including sponsoring
an essay contest for school children. Ignatius Press, which publishes
IgnatiusInsight.com, was one of the Walk sponsors and Walk Co-chair Eva
Muntean is a marketing assistant at the Press.

San Francisco Archbishop William Levada said a prayer at the beginning
of the rally and Walk and walked the route, behind the "Abortion
hurts Women" banner held by group of young women. Hundreds of walkers
held signs that said, "Women deserve better than abortion,"
the copyrighted slogan of Feminists for Life of America.

The Walks goal was to reach women, particularly women who had had
abortions or who were pregnant.

Nellie Boldrick, who was a Walk participant and one of the Walks
organizers, said a number of women came up to her during the Walk to tell
her they had had abortions. Georgette Forney, president of Silent No More
Awareness Campaign, and a speaker at the Walk rally, said several women
hugged her along the way and she is corresponding with others via email.

"We must have passed out about two dozen brochures and cards to people
just sayinga lot of people say they have a friend. Sometimes its
really a friend, sometimes its code," Forney said. "There
were other people who would step up alongside and put their arm around
me and say thank you for having the courage to speak for us."

Mayor Newsom calls himself a practicing Catholic but created a storm of
controversy last year when he decided to begin issuing same sex marriage
licenses from City Hall, a fiat which was later halted by the courts.
He is strongly pro-abortion.

Supervisor Alioto-Pier, a co-sponsor of the board of supervisors
resolution, attends the same Catholic parish church as one of the Walk
co-chairs, Dolores Meehan, a fourth-generation San Franciscan.

Calls to the Mayors office and to the office of Supervisor Michela
Alioto-Pier were not returned.

Forney, who came to speak at the San Francisco event from her home in
Pennsylvania, was amazed by the reaction from City Hall. She told Catholic
World Report, in an article to be published in its February 2005 edition:
"There is a pompousness among the cultural elites there where theyre
almost in their own cultural state and no one else matters and how dare
you disagree with them."

In the Catholic San Francisco editorial, Healy likened city officials
response to that of racist Southerners against the Freedom Riders who
traveled to the South to try to break the segregationists hold.

"San Francisco officials had tried to villainize the
pro-life group as outsiders," wrote Healy, "This
is an epithet that Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. easily would have recognized.
When King participated in marches for civil rights in various U.S. cities,
he often experienced the same kind of insults that were thrown at the
participants in the Walk for Life. Worse still, the angry shouts of pro-abortion
activists, telling the marchers to Go back to the Central Valley,
were thinly veiled racist attacks on Hispanic Americans.

Valerie Schmalz is a writer for IgnatiusInsight.
She worked as a reporter and editor for The Associated Press, and in print
and broadcast media for ten years. She holds a BA in Government from University
of San Francisco and a Master of Science from the School of Foreign Service
at Georgetown University. She is the former director of Birthright of San
Francisco. Valerie and her wonderful husband have four children. She was
a participant in the Walk for Life West Coast.

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